PESHAWAR, Jan 13: Amid a split among the lawyers the Pakistan Bar Council (PBC) on Sunday decided to end continuous boycott of the superior courts and reduce it to one day a week and for an hour daily.

However, the PBC did not announce its decision and stated that it would be done in Islamabad after taking detained Supreme Court Bar Association President Aitzaz Ahsan into confidence.

On the other hand, the National Lawyers’ Action Committee (NLAC) decided to continue the boycott.

A large number of lawyers gathered at the Peshawar High Court raised slogans of ‘boycott, boycott’ on hearing about the PBC’s decision.

“How can we appear before the PCO judges when we don’t accept them,” said Qaiser Rasheed, a member of NWFP Bar Council, while addressing the infuriated lawyers.

NWFP Bar Council vice-chairman Qazi Naeem announced that the council had decided to continue boycott of the superior courts as well as the subordinate judiciary in the province till the restoration of pre-Nov 3 judiciary, irrespective of the decision of the PBC.

PHC Bar Association president Abdul Lateef Afridi had to intervene when protesting lawyers refused to allow some senior members of PBC to leave without announcing the decision.

According to sources, about 14 participants of the PBC meeting maintained that there should be modification in the boycott and it should be reduced to every Thursday and for one hour on other working days. Qazi Mohammad Anwer, Safeerullah Khan and Fazle Haq Abbasi from the NWFP and Hamid Khan from Punjab favoured continuing the complete boycott.

Since the imposition of emergency rule on Nov 3, lawyers have been observing complete boycott of the superior courts. They have also been boycotting the subordinate courts every Thursday.

The PBC members who supported modification in the earlier decision of continuous boycott of the superior courts included Peoples Party Parliamentarians Senators Sardar Lateef Khosa and Farouk H. Naik and Senator Kahlid Ranjha of the PML-Q.

Meeting and was jointly presided over by PBC vice-chairman Mirza Aziz Baig and executive committee chairman Qazi Anwer.

Hamid Khan told Dawn after the meeting that the decision would be announced on Monday after consulting Aitzaz Ahsan.

A PBC member said on the condition of anonymity that members from Punjab and Sindh had vociferously pleaded for ending the continuous boycott. He added that the PBC was a statutory body and its decision was binding on the lawyers, including the NLAC.

A member from Sindh said cases had been registered against more than 150,000 members of PPP under the Anti-Terrorism Act following the killing of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto. In some cases anti-terrorism courts had granted pre-arrest bails and the provincial government had moved the Sindh High Court. He said the lawyers had to appear before the high court to defend the workers.

A member from the NWFP, Said Rehman Khan, said that if the lawyers from Sindh and Punjab could not continue the boycott then there would be no use of continuing it in other provinces.

The PBC meeting was followed by one of the NLAC which was attended by most of the representatives of the elected bodies of lawyers from across the country, including the SCBA, the bar councils of Sindh, Punjab, the NWFP and Balochistan and high court bar associations.

A majority of the participants favoured continuing the boycott.